Economics fellowship honors fallen Vietnam soldier
An economics alumni established the Wayne W. Gross Graduate Fellowship to honor his friend, Wayne Gross, who died in Vietnam. The recipient of this will be a Ph.D. student in economics who is beginning their dissertation process. One recipient is awarded for the duration of three years.
October 29, 2014
The Wayne W. Gross Graduate Fellowship for a graduate student in economics will be awarded as early as next year.
The fellowship is in honor of Wayne W. Gross who earned an MS degree in economics from Iowa State in 1967. He died the next year in a Vietnam War battle.
A friend Gross made during his time at Iowa State decided to donate money for a fellowship to fully fund an economics graduate student during their last three years in honor of Gross.
“This was simply something that I had thought a long time about doing and now I could,” the donor said, “I felt a fellowship in Wayne’s memory would also go a long way towards helping another human being to accomplish goals that Wayne made a deliberate choice to put on hold.”
Zhixia Ma, fourth year graduate student in economics and president of the Economics Graduate Student Association, thinks the fellowship would help the student focus on his or her dissertation and reduce the pressure to get another job to pay for school.
“For most students I don’t think they can get enough funding,” Ma said, “If they can have some sort of fellowship that would really help.”
This one time fellowship will be awarded to a graduate student in economics who closely fits preferences given by the donor.
Gross’s legacy lives on.
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